What is happening in Afghanistan: why are US troops withdrawing and who are the Taliban advancing unchecked

Teresa bo, the granddaughter of legendary filmmaker Armando Bo, knows Afghanistan. Between 2001 and 2010, she produced five journalistic reports in the Asian country as an envoy for the Qatari television channel. Al Jazeera, some of them extended and in Taliban territory.

“It’s a country where being a woman is extremely difficult. When I interviewed one of the “Warlords” he never looked me in the eye or spoke to me. He did it only with the Pashtun language translator. And while we were walking in a refugee camp, the boys for fun threw stones at me in the back, ”said the journalist. TN.com.ar.

Afghanistan is now experiencing a renewed chapter in its permanent conflict. The american president Joe biden has kept its campaign promise to withdraw US troops based in the country since the invasion decided by the White House after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Washington has accused the Taliban of covering up and supporting al-Qaeda forces led by Osama Bin Laden. The Taliban regime, in power since 1996, then fell like a house of cards.

Two decades later, these troops are retreating, although Biden has just announced send 3,000 troops to evacuate embassy staff in Kabuthere, the Afghan capital which awaits the arrival of Islamic militiamen of Sunni origin in perplexity. The Pentagon expected to withdraw the last soldier by the end of this month.

“It’s a political question. The United States has this contradiction that it has to be there and it doesn’t have to be. And then there is the demand from the Afghan people that the soldiers must leave, but now that they are gone they are sending 3,000 troops again, ”Bo said.

20 years is nothing

The United States tried for 20 years to structure a professional Afghan army in preparation for its withdrawal. “But they could never give enough strength to the national army. He lacks the strength of the Taliban backed by Pakistan and its secret servicesBo said.

“Barack Obama already wanted to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, but the conditions were not met. Not now, but Biden kept his campaign promise ”. “The worst thing is that the Afghan army is not trained to face the Taliban. It is not motivated by the Taliban, ”he said.

This armed group was born in the early 1990s in the border area of ​​northern Pakistan and southwestern Afghanistan with the promise of fighting corruption and improving security. After taking power, they enforced Islamic law, forcing men to grow beards, and women were forced to wear the burqa, a black veil that covers the face and body. They also banned television, music and movies, and girls over 10 could no longer go to school.

“The militiamen are convinced that they are a just war take Afghanistan and get the foreigners out of the country and all those who have collaborated with the United States. It is a group of strict and organized religious codes fighting against a paid army, ”said Bo.

And he sums up: “They not only want to apply the laws of the Quran to the letter, but have their own interpretations. They study in madrasas (Koranic schools) in Pakistan. I went to parts of Kandahar, in the south of the country, where the Taliban are very present, and girls couldn’t go to school and if they did they would throw acid at them“in the face.

What can happen now

The result seems sealed. Peace negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government in Qatar have come to naught. The offense is violent. The provincial capitals are falling one after the other like a domino effect. Some of them without firing a single shot. On Wednesday, the Taliban demanded the taking of Kandahar, the second largest city in the country. “Kandahar is completely conquered,” a Taliban spokesperson said on an official Twitter account.

The militiamen came to conquer Herat, another major western city. They have already taken over a third of the 34 provincial capitals. Last week, the Afghan government abandoned almost all of the north, south and east of the country. He retains control only of the capital and a handful of cities, although many of them are latent in the face of the Taliban threat.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people have left their towns and taken refuge in Kabul, which reporters say has become a large open-air camp.

Faced with this catastrophe, the question now is when Kabul will fall. The answer is already certain in the Pentagon dispatches: intelligence reports mention that the capital will be surrounded in 30 days. It would then only be a matter of time, according to analysts quoted by The Washington Post.

The White House then thinks of one last room. Before abandoning the government to its fate and long before the Taliban set foot in Kabul again, Biden wants his troops to evacuate all diplomatic personnel based in the country. The United States has arrived with a Taliban regime and will leave on the eve of its return. Two decades of invasion and permanent conflict are over. Without Osama Bin Laden, but with the same protagonists.